National news

Bin Laden son-in-law found guilty in terror trial

CharlesLevinson

Osama bin Laden's son-in-law was found guilty Wednesday of conspiring to kill Americans and of providing material support to terrorists, one of the most prominent al Qaeda operatives to be convicted in a U.S. civilian court.

The conviction of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith is another notch for federal terrorism prosecutors, who have battled criticism in recent years that they were ill-equipped to handle high-stakes terrorism cases and that military commissions were better suited for the task.

The 12-member anonymous jury came to the decision in Manhattan federal court after deliberating for just over a day. The three-week trial and successful conviction stand in contrast to the military commissions handling the cases of detainees at Guantanamo. Those trials have crawled along at a slow pace and at least two convictions have been challenged successfully in federal appeals courts.

Relatives of 9/11 victims and military commission terrorism prosecutors were among those who turned up at various points to observe the proceedings.

Mr. Abu Ghaith--a little known Kuwaiti preacher who joined al Qaeda's fold in June 2001 during a visit to Afghanistan--was tapped by bin Laden to be al Qaeda's official spokesman just hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to Mr. Abu Ghaith, who made a surprise decision to take the stand in his own defense.

The preacher and religious scholar provided al Qaeda one skill that bin Laden and his other top lieutenants lacked: a knack for fiery oration.

Still, Mr. Abu Ghaith's case wasn't cut and dry. On one hand, as Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ferrara said in his closing arguments, Mr. Abu Ghaith "was literally the face of al Qaeda" in the immediate aftermath of 9/11.

Witnesses and Mr. Abu Ghaith recounted during the trial how he had gone to Afghanistan in June 2001 to see for himself how Islamic rule under the Taliban was shaping up. Bin Laden summoned him and asked him to preach to al Qaeda recruits in some of the camps.

The following day, Mr. Abu Ghaith appeared in a video sitting alongside bin Laden, and bin Laden's two top deputies in al Qaeda. That video--first broadcast on Al Jazeera--quickly ricocheted around the world.

He made several more videos and audio recordings in the months and weeks that followed. Those recordings constituted the bulk of the government's case against Mr. Abu Ghaith. Jurors saw Mr. Abu Ghaith's jarring and violent proclamations replayed in the courtroom numerous times.

"Fight ye against the friends of Satan," Mr. Abu Ghaith exhorts potential al Qaeda recruits in one video. In another, he says of the young men who carried out the 9/11 attacks, "they have done a good deed." In yet another one he says, "Carrying out terrorism against the oppressors is a creed in our religion."

But as the defense noted, Mr. Abu Ghaith's affiliation with al Qaeda was more tenuous than those videos might suggest.

Mr. Abu Ghaith had only known bin Laden about three months when the 9/11 attacks happened. He never joined al Qaeda, he testified. No one at trial testified that Mr. Abu Ghaith had any prior knowledge of any al Qaeda attacks, including 9/11.

Several government witnesses said they had barely heard of the guy. An al Qaeda code card that the government posited included Mr. Abu Ghaith's name along with other senior al Qaeda members spelled his name incorrectly, leaving room for the defense to argue that it was likely another person altogether.

Stanley L. Cohen, one of Mr. Abu Ghaith's defense attorneys, said the government was relying on the imagery of his client seated next to bin Laden, a few recorded speeches, and emotional 9/11 recollections to make the case in the absence of evidence that Mr. Abu Ghaith was a top al Qaeda leader.

It was 9/11 and bin Laden who seemed to be on trial rather than Mr. Abu Ghaith, Mr. Cohen argued. He noted in his closing arguments that Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cronan mentioned bin Laden's name in the government's closing arguments far more than the defendant's.

The trial was unusual for other reasons. Mr. Abu Ghaith's handpicked defense team included an unlikely cast of characters speaking up on behalf of al Qaeda. His lead lawyer, Mr. Cohen, who is Jewish, sported a raggedy pony tail and showed up to court on some days with a Palestinian kaffiyeh draped around his shoulders. Mr. Abu Ghaith's second defense attorney, Zoe Dolan, is an openly transgender woman, who showed up one morning in knee-high lace-up boots.

Rounding out the team was Geoffrey Stewart, whose mother Lynne Stewart was convicted of conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists for passing messages from her client, the blind Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, convicted in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Mr. Abu Ghaith's unorthodox legal team clashed often with U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who threatened to take disciplinary actions against them at least twice during the trial.

Throughout the trial, Mr. Abu Ghaith sat stoically, showing no signs of the fire and brimstone that characterized his anti-American speeches in the wake of 9/11. He was more rotund, and his beard grayer than in the videos from 2001 and 2002. He wore dark gray suits and a white dress shirt open at the collar, with blue canvas slip-on Vans and reading spectacles. He occasionally peered out the 26th floor windows of the Manhattan federal courthouse.

Behind closed doors, Mr. Abu Ghaith found the whole notion of a jury trial confounding, said a person familiar with his thinking.

"He didn't understand how you can take someone from their home one morning and transform them overnight into a judge," said this person.

Mr. Abu Ghaith's unexpected testimony last week marked the trial's climax. Defense attorneys had said they wouldn't call Mr. Abu Ghaith to testify, but he had insisted on telling his version of events, according to this person.

After the judge barred written testimony by alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is in custody in Guantanamo Bay, Mr. Abu Ghaith's lawyers decided they had little choice but to have him testify. Their last-minute decision caught the government off guard. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Lewin complained to the judge that it amounted to "sandbagging of the worst sort."

Mr. Abu Ghaith testified that the statements he made were partially from his own conviction that oppressed Muslims had the right and the duty to fight back against their oppressors. But he also testified that some of his most dramatic threats, that "a storm of airplanes" would continue to batter U.S. targets, were dictated to him by bin Laden.

Write to Charles Levinson at charles.levinson@wsj.com and Christopher M. Matthews at christopher.matthews@wsj.com

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